Ridge had the door open, but the guy had passed out in front of it. Ridge was having trouble getting through.
I lifted my legs. Pressing my tennis shoes into the goon’s thighs, I tried to lift up higher to release the pressure. My vision was getting blurry. My eyes bulged. My tongue extended from my mouth, trying to make room for more air to get into my lungs.
As I lifted up, I slammed my elbow first left then right toward his temples.
Then, like an avenging angel, a fur rocket vaulted into the room.
Zeus brought his jaw down on the ogre’s bicep, dangling his weight while he shook his majestic head.
I was tossed aside as the ogre screamed.
When I hit the ground, I rolled to the knife, afraid that if it should somehow end up in the guy’s hand that he’d hurt Zeus.
I grabbed the unconscious guy’s hand and crawled backward, scooting on my butt as I dragged him far enough into the room that Ridge could make his way in, gun in hand.
“Call off your dog!” The ogre bellowed.
“On your knees.” Ridge’s voice was ice.
I slid further back on my butt until I made it all the way to the kitchen, where I opened the fridge and stuck my head inside, looking for a blast of cool air to right my systems.
Chapter Thirty-One
Destiny was dead.
Dead.
Dead.
A deep moan escaped from the bowels of my being.
I hadn’t left the galley kitchen, hadn’t crawled up from the floor. I sat there with my legs extended in front of me. Zeus laid across my lap, his focus intent on the comings and goings in the room. En guard.
The two men had been cuffed by the FBI guys in their tactical gear and hauled away for interrogation.
The medical examiner had come and gone with the body.
Ridge stood out of the way, vigilant.
Prescott and Finley moved into the kitchen and sat on the floor with me.
“I’m sorry, Lynx,” Prescott said. “You handled yourself beautifully. But that should never have happened. We thought we were monitoring The Grove effectively. I can’t imagine this originated with them. We would have picked up some chatter.”
“There are other players, though, that you couldn’t manage?” I asked.
“We didn’t think they’d become aware of Modesty’s living arrangements,” Finley said. “And if they did…well, Modesty had done a good job for someone with little knowledge of how the world works at keeping herself under the radar.”
“Was the muriatic acid already up here?” Ridge asked.
“Not when I left for the diner earlier this morning.”
Finley and Prescott looked at each other. “Well, it’s strong enough that it might make her unidentifiable. Destroy her fingerprints.”
“If they had DNA, they’d still be able to figure out what she looked like. There’s an artist in New York that can make a fairly realistic mask out of Destiny’s genomic material, enough that a picture on the news and someone would recognize her. Of course, mostly Destiny only knows—knew people from the diner and The Grove.”
“What are you saying about the artist?” Prescott asked.
“Can I tell you about that later?” I asked. My stomach was queasy, and talking made it worse. I was so glad that all I saw of Destiny was her feet as the goon carried her into the bathroom. I had no idea how they killed her and had no desire to be caught up on the case.
As far as I was concerned, I was done.
Though Spyder was involved…
Prescott reached out and patted my leg. “This will keep. Let Ridge take you home. Try to get some rest.”
As he said that, Zeus climbed from my lap.
Finley stretched out a hand to help me up.
“Do you need to go by the hospital?” Prescott asked.
“Yeah, just to be sure. Strangulation, even as lightly and for as short a time as it happened to me, can have bad outcomes. I should probably check-in and make sure I’m not going to swell up and die in my sleep.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Hey, Spyder,” I said when I found him sitting in my living room. Somehow, I wasn’t at all surprised.
Ridge and Zeus had escorted me away from Suburban Hospital with my clean bill of health. Ridge let Zeus sit on the floorboard in the front with me in the SUV.
Zeus rested his head in my lap, and I got to pet his soft fur. He was balm to my heart.
I had bent forward and kissed Zeus between his velvety ears. “Thank you for saving me from the bad guy,” I whispered as Ridge pulled up in front of my house.
Dawn would break soon.
Striker met me at the door with a hug and a kiss. I could tell he was trying to keep things light. He wasn’t going to ride me.
Good choice.
“I am sorry that things unfolded the way in which they did.” Spyder was sitting in the rocking chair. The length of his legs made it look like the chair had been made for a child.
“It wasn’t the way I thought things would go, that’s for sure.” I moved toward him to offer a kiss of welcome.
Hopefully, now I’d get a clearer picture of what kind of mess I’d been playing in.
After Striker took his place on the sofa, I toed off my shoes and curled up against his chest. “Now that Modesty is unable to provide information, do you have another route to whatever it was that you were trying to figure out?”
Man, that sounded cold. Modesty was a young woman who hadn’t even met
